Do You Trust Your Great Physician? (Ephesians 2:1-10)

In light of the events of my father’s injury last week, I preached this sermon on Ephesians 2:1-10 (this sermon will be up for the next four weeks). Here’s the introduction (much of this is a repeat of the previous blog entry).

—

September 18 was a day that changed everything for my family.My father sustained some life-threatening injuries after falling off a scaffold from twelve feet in the air.After falling on the scaffold brace, then having some of that scaffolding fall on him, they airlifted him to the hospital where they saw his main artery to his heart crushed, aneurysms that cut off the majority of his blood flow to the kidneys, numerous perforations in his bowel — plus I’m sure many other issues that could develop.

The surgeon, a trusted physician in his 60s, told mom and my sister that they had never seen anything like it.Once Dad pulled through the operation, they told him they did not think he would make it off the table.But he did.And they were concerned whether he would make it through the night, but he did.

I did not know what to expect.It took me a few hours to process the news.When I went in to see him on Tuesday, I walked in first and I remember as I walked through the Trauma Center looking for my dad, my mom tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to him.You see, I saw him as I walked through, but walked on past.Why?It just didn’t look like Dad.I did not recognize my own father.My initial reaction was that I cried — I cried like a little boy needing his dad.Few things shake you quite as fiercely as seeing a smart, emotionally and physically strong man who just happens to be your father and friend strapped to a table with scrapes and bumps and tubes and wires and machines hooked up to him.

Yet, I also remember clinging to every piece of news that those doctors and nurses gave us.How did he do last night?How’s his blood pressure?Should his temperature be that high?When’s the next surgery?Why are his feet so hot?Why are his hands so cold?We clung to whatever they could tell us.Whatever those doctors and nurses told us would happen, we hung on every single, solitary word they said.

Before I left, one of the members who happens to be online periodically reminded me of how the Great Physician has us in his care and that we are to appeal to him.I treasured that comment because, to be honest, I was fretting so badly about my dad’s injury and wondering if (if!) he would make it, I forgot about my Great Physician.And I immediately had a choice in whom I would place my trust!

We have our thoughts about the kind of trust we place in physicians when we are under their care.But what about our Great Physician?Do we trust him?I have noticed:the more dire the condition, the more helpless we feel and the more we lean on what our Physicians have to say?Is that how we are with our Great Physician?